56. Pressure Cooking Tomatoes:

Does your pressure cooker scorch and burn tomato-based recipes? Are you tired of chipping away at last night’s dinner from the base of your pressure cooker? Think you can’t pressure cook a recipe that is boiled, soaked, or stewed in tomatoes?!?! Well then this post is especially for you.

I’ve had my fair share of tomato based curries/ roasts getting touched/ scorched and when came across these wonderful tips knew I had to share with other pressure cooker users. This editted link below teaches seven great pro tips for getting delicious scorch-free tomato-based sauces and recipes in your pressure cooker. Heres to more successful pressure-cooking when using tomatoes!!!

1. In addition to using the right balance of cooking liquid for each tomato products, here are a few more things to keep in mind: DO Un-thick(dilute) the Tomato Product.

2. DO Scrape it – Don’t build the groundwork for things to stick onto anything else that is already sticking. Scrape the base of the pressure cooker well to lift-up onions, pasta, rice, etc. A good time to do this is usually during a de-glaze step or just before closing. My weapon of choice for this task is a flat-head bamboo spatula.

3. DON’T Puree – Don’t blend or puree’ ingredients before pressure cooking – or at least wait until after pressure cooking. Keeping most of the ingredients in large pieces keeps the sauce from getting thick before you’re finished pressure cooking.

4. DO Bring’em To A Boil – For iffy tomato-based recipes, bring all of the ingredients to a rolling boil before slapping on the pressure cooker lid. This ensures that everything in the cooker is moving quickly enough to generate steam and, eventually, build pressure.

5. DO Layer It – Lorna Sass, the Queen of Pressure Cooking, introduced a novel way to keep thick tomato sauces from scorching in her cookbooks. She layers recipe ingredients in the pressure cooker by thickness (stock first, veggies after, tomato sauce last) and then directs the cook not to stir the pot before closing the lid to pressure cook

6. DON’T Go Processed – Never use prepared “pasta” or “salsa” sauces as they usually contain starches, gums, flours and other thickeners which will prevent the cooker from reaching pressure. If that’s all you’ve got, mix it in after pressure cooking and simmer the flavor into the food.

7. DO Bain Marie It – One of our readers, shared in the forums that when there is no other option they use the pressure cooker bain marie (aka another pot/pan in pot) method to keep their sauce from sticking.

(Oven -Safe materials used in the Pressure- Cooker pot- in -pot method could include:

utensils/pots made of stainless steel, aluminum, pyrex, corningware and silicone bakeware that fit comfortably in your pot over a trivet and some water)